Just under a week ago, Jane and I were in the process of arranging to part exchange out present car for another one, still second hand but much newer. It should be ready for us sometime next week so a little bit of patience is called for still. One of the things we discussed with the dealer was spare wheels, as most newer cars eschew them in favour of temporary repair kits. I observed that it didn’t matter that much as we’d never actually had to change a tyre in any case on this or previous cars.

Ironic then that Jane ran over a blackthorn spike today while she was doing some voluntary work over at the RSPB reserve at Otmoor. She spotted it when she got home, pulled it out and the tyre went down. So, now I have experienced changing a wheel and driving on a temporary one. We’ve arranged to get it sorted tomorrow morning hopefully this means we’ll have another twenty or more years of driving without having to repeat the experience.

Oh, and we’ll be very cautious driving any where near blackthorn for a while to come.